Shaping Change

Ayana Jamieson, the founder of the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network, co-organized a three-day conference with me called "Shaping Change: Remembering Octavia E. Butler through Archives, Art, and Worldmaking," which took place at the Cross-Cultural Center at the University of California, San Diego, June 3-5, 2016. Jamieson has the deepest knowledge of Butler's papers at the Huntington Library of anyone that I know. She held a prestigious Helen Bing Fellowship there to continue her research for Butler's biography, which she is currently writing. She also leads the One Book/One College Program on Butler's Dawn at Pasadena City College. Butler's family states in a letter that they "especially wish to acknowledge and commend the scholarship, expertise, and guidance of Ms. Ayana Jamieson." Her knowledge of Butler's work and life as well as her expertise about the artists and scholars who are doing cutting-edge work in response to Butler was crucial for the success of the conference, which was an historic gathering of artists, writers, scholars, students, and activists inspired by Butler's memory to shape change and make a better world. It included an Undergraduate Research Summit and a Graduate Student Summit. The conference also sparked significant attendance and participation from community members.

We received $32,500 in funding, including $20,000 from the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, $5000 from UCSD's Culture, Art, and Technology Writing Program at Sixth College, $3000 from the Division of Social Science, $1500 from the Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, $500 from Theater and Dance, $500 from Music, $300 from Ethnic Studies. $250 from Critical Gender Studies, $250 from the Black Studies Project, $250 from Psychology, $200 from Education Studies, $250 from Literature, and $250 from the Division of Arts and Humanities. The Clarion Workshop and the Octavia E. Butler Legacy Network were also co-sponsors.

Shaping Change Conference Schedule

All events will take place at the Cross-Cultural Center on the 2nd Floor of the Price Center East, UCSD. Registration and panels will take place in La Comunidad Room. Conference-related art, speculative design projects, and visions of the future created by Sixth College’s CAT (Culture, Art, Technology) 3 students will on display in the ArtSpace room.

Friday, June 03, 2016

8:45 am – 9:45 am

Registration and Continental Breakfast

10:00 am – 10:45 am

Welcome - Shelley Streeby & Ayana Jamieson

Screening- Invisible Universe footage and Q & A with M. Asli Dukan

11:00 am – 12: 15 pm

Panel - Latin American and Latinx Futurisms after Octavia E. Butler

Curtis Marez, “Future Lines of Flight: Octavia E. Butler, the Royal Chicano Air Force, and the United Farm Workers Movement”

Sunday, June 05, 2016

Kim Hester Williams, “Earthseeds of Change: Post-Apocalyptic Mythmaking in The Book of Eli and Octavia Butler’s Womanist Ecologies”

Olaronke Akinmowo, “Lauren Olamina’s Life Tips”

10:30 am – 11: 30 am

Workshop

Allison Simon, “Manifesting Change: A Search for Ourselves through Time & Space”

11:30 pm to 1:00 pm

Community Council and Closing Ritual

Welcome - Shelley Streeby & Ayana Jamieson

Screening- Invisible Universe footage and Q & A with M. Asli Dukan

A documentary work-in-progress Produced by M. Asli Dukan GENRE: documentary | speculative fiction http://invisibleuniversedoc.com SYNOPSIS: The Invisible Universe documentary reveals the history of the representations and participation of Black people in the genres of fantasy, horror and science fiction, or speculative fiction (SF).

"Framed through the POV of a time traveling Archivist, the documentary explores 150 years of speculative fiction literature, its origins, developments, key personalities and current state, all through the perspective of Black people and history. The documentary demonstrates how the genres, which were premised on the ideology of white supremacy, have been adopted and adapted by Black writers as a form of artistic resistance for envisioning different worlds and futures.

The story is revealed to the audience through the comprehensive, independent research of the filmmaker, M. Asli Dukan, who began HD production in 2011. Ms. Dukan has compiled an extensive interviewee list of Black creators who have been producing SF works where Black people not only exist in the future, but are powerful shapers of their own realities, whether in magical lands, dystopian settings, or on distant worlds. In addition, she has documented an impressive number of academic, community and arts events dedicated to the work and analysis of Black SF, as well as to building connections between creators, organizers, academics and fans. In the past decade, the filmmaker has documented the cultural shift around Black SF and its development into an informal network and movement.